In the news

Twitter and blogs are not add-​​ons to research

August 28, 2014

“The best (and most suc­cessful) aca­d­e­mics are the ones who are so caught up in the impor­tance of their work, so caught up with their simple pas­sion for a sub­ject, that they pub­li­cise it with every breath,” Pro­fessor Hitch­cock says.

He praises the early career scholars who have dis­missed con­cerns that exposing their research too early “will either open them to ridicule, or allow someone else to ‘steal’ their ideas”.

“In my expe­ri­ence, the most suc­cessful early career human­ists have already started building a form of public dia­logue in to their aca­d­emic practice.”

He gives exam­ples, including Ben Schmidt, assis­tant pro­fessor of his­tory at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity, whose Sap­ping Atten­tion blog charts his work on using modern tech­niques to answer ques­tions about 19th-​​century America; and Helen Rogers, reader in 19th-​​century studies at Liv­er­pool John Moores Uni­ver­sity, who shares excerpts from her forth­coming book, Con­vic­tion: Sto­ries from a Nineteenth-​​century Prison, on her Con­vic­tion blog.

More “In the news” Media Coverage

“This is an exciting and unex­pected dis­covery that ques­tions the stan­dard par­a­digm in the field,” Kim Lewis, director of the Antimi­cro­bial Dis­covery Center at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity not involved with the […]

Last year, for instance, the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion reported that it took twice as long to fill sci­ence, tech­nology, engi­neering, and math, or STEM, jobs as non-​​​​STEM posts. Mean­while, aca­d­e­mics like […]

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